Amsterdam

Places to Stay

Make sure to book budget Amsterdam hotels early, last year, I had to book 2+ month in advance for my stay in May.

hotelrunners.com has some good listings

Barbacan Hotel
Bed & Coffee
HI Vondelpark
Hotel Fantasia
Hotel Prinsenhof
The Shelter

Safety

Amsterdam is safe for everyone except perhaps for those with a sense of class and sophistication, but for them God created Paris.

I've been to Amsterdam quite a few times - although the main train station seems a bit dodgy to me, I've never felt really unsafe pretty much anywhere in that city.

I didn't have any worries about going alone, I wandered around the city quite a bit and never felt unsafe, even in the Red Light District where my hostel was located. I spent a bit of time sitting on that staircase statue at the Dam. There were lots of seedy characters around but friendly enough. I got talking to a Morroccan guy for awhile who was polite and interesting but sleazy and buggered off to talk to another girl walking by when he realised I wasn't a crackwhore type. There are lots of interesting characters around, but I felt more comfortable safe in Amsterdam than in my own city at home. There's safety in numbers and there are constantly people buzzing around everywhere in the city centre at all hours.

I think as long as you take reasonable precautions i.e., keep your wallet/passport in a safe place, don't walk down dark alleys alone at night, etc. - all stuff you should do as a matter of course anyway, you should be fine.

- Stick to the main canals after dark
- Avoid eye contact with street drug dealers, because if you show even the slightest interest, they will hound you until you hand over your cash
- If you ever feel threatened, move to an area where there is plenty of light and people
- Get on good terms with your coffeeshop staff member if you're going to start experimenting with the funny stuff
- For the sake of your mental health, if anyone says "Hi, I'm from Boom Chigaco, do you want to come and see our show tonight..." run, and run hard.

Things to Do

As a gardener, I *loved* Keukenhof Gardens in the height of the tulip season. I'd imagine it's quite lovely the rest of the year.

Dutch history/culture-wise go see the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Dutch masters were on the first floor, including Rembrandt's famous Nightwatch. Most works are now located in the Phillip's Wing. There is also an exhibit at Schipol Airport.

Modern culture-wise, Stedelijk museum or the marihuana museum depending of your definition of modern culture.

The Van Gogh museum is right in between those two (Rijks and Stedelijk) if you want to visit it anyway

I also recommend going to the 'Begijnhof' it's a tiny square with well maintained, really old 16th century houses. There used to be an outdoor museum on de 'Zaanse schans', an area with a lot windmills and old dutch houses near Zaanstad).

We visited the Begijnhof in 1998 and enjoyed seeing it. It is Amsterdam's oldest still intact inner courtyard. It's off Kalverstraat near Spui

The scope is smaller than the Van Gogh so it's not an ALL DAY extravaganza. I think it's well laid out, the two times I have been they have had interesting special shows. You get to see other aspects of his work aside from the Casey Kasem Euroart top 40. Its well lit and not too crowded on the walls. I think the museum is one of the better ones that I have been to. This has everything to do with the layout and the manageable size and not so much to do with the content.

I really like the Vondelpark for a stroll in Amsterdam.

If you go to Anne Frank's house expect long lines as it is often busy in the day time. You can avoid the line by going late in the afternoon or first thing in the morning. Well worth braving any crowd, however. There is a nice little pub across the canal from Anne Frank where you can sit for a drink and watch the line grow shorter.

Heineken Brewery! The Heineken Experience is a bit cheesy, but does give you three beers and a free glass.

If you feel like a movie, there's a beautiful Art Neaveau theater. It's near the Singel canal, maybe on Reguliers Breestr. It's by a MacDonald's if that helps!

Take one of the narrated boat rides around the canals.

Stroll along the canals, admiring the architecture and soaking up the atmosphere. There's something about cities and towns with lots of waterways that are especially eye-pleasing and soul-satisfying.

Stop at the Begijnhof and the Bloemenmarkt, Holland's famous floating flower market.

Of course, you will want to stroll through the Red Light District. Be sure to visit Amstelkring in the Red Light District (a hidden church in an attic), the flower market, and Spui for nice restaurants and pubs. Leidseplein is fun for nightlife.

Definitely check out to museum of modern art. It usually has some rather interesting exhibits.

Amsterdam on the Cheap

Stay in a hostel. All of them are cheap compared with hotels. The cheapest sound pretty awful, but the HI hostels are fairly cheap and pleasant.

Consider an Amsterdam pass for one, two or three days. It covers admission to all museums, except Anne Frank and Heineken, and allows use of the bus, tram and metro system.

Get a bus strip-card from a Tourist office (not from a bus driver), a bus map (free or cheap), and spend the day travelling around. Also walk around.

Vondelpark is a large varied park, free to walk round.

The botanical gardens are low-cost and good for 1 to 2 hours and warm if it's cold weather.

Canal Tours

I did the night canal tour in Amsterdam. It was the day I landed and I was fairly jet lagged, so it was a good way to make myself stay awake without exhausting myself further.

My recollection was that the boat was covered with clear plexiglass windows so you could see everything, but if it was rainy, you'd be dry.

The tour director was a little hard to understand so I was content to just sit back, enjoy the ride, the bridges & canals... Pretty relaxing.

It wasn't exactly cheap, about $20 per person but they were giving wine & cheese which was my dinner that night.

Queensday

It's the best time of the year to go to the Keukenhof. You will find it in full bloom to be inspirational.

There are some definite pros & cons to going for Queensday.

Pros would be booze everywhere and kind of a party atmosphere.

Cons would be accommodations are harder to get ( just +1 & -1 of queensday proper)

Also if you're not in Amsterdam proper it seems most everything is closed.

The weather is generally 55-60 degreeish and soggy, with one nice day thrown in just to totally confuse you.

I find the party til you puke tourists a bit irritating, but I'm sure that if you put in some effort you could ditch that crowd, they're mostly hanging out in the RLD looking for the Bulldog Coffee Shop anyhow.

Where to Eat

Make sure to have the stroopwafels in Amsterdam they are divine! They come packaged like cookies.

The Hard Rock Cafe in A-dam has a great menu for those who enjoy combustable entertainment. Just off of Dam square, the Red Light district is also just around the corner.

Restaurants in the Leidseplein area are fairly cheap and do very substantial portions. There are lots of cheap take-out snack bars e.g. giros, fries, falafel.

Day Trips

Take a train ride to Utrecht and climb up the church tower for a great view with cooperating weather, of course

I enjoyed Brugge, Belgium on my last trip out that way. It was small, walkable, scenic, and hey, I got to check out a vial of the Sacred Blood of Christ! Gotta love those Catholic relics. It's about 3-4 hours Brugge to Amsterdam

Otherwise, it's about a 4 hour ride from Amsterdam to Cologne, Germany. From there you could have lots of German adventures.

If you get fed up with Amsterdam and if you are in decent shape you can consider also renting a bicycle and going to Monnikendam or Marken. It's about a 2 hour bike ride and remember, you have to go back as well. It will give you a nice ride through the countryside and to some of the older towns while not costing too much.

You can also consider taking the bus to Marken or Monnikendam. Buses go there every half hour and are a lot cheaper then guided tours which you don't really need for those towns anyway. If you think you do, just tag along with one of the groups that's already there. There is bound be at least one group there on any given day anyway.

Other cheap options for daytrips are Haarlem (about 15 minutes by train) or Zandvoort (seaside town, about 30 minutes by train).

If you don't mind a longer journey (2.5 hours by train) I'd definitely recommend going to Maastricht. It's a lovely town in the South of the Netherlands. It is really nice and in the nook of a few countries.

If you're in the market for a camera it's just a half-hour drive or so to Aachen. It also only takes a couple of hours to get down into the Ardennes from there.

Texel or any of the other islands to the north are very chilled out and beautiful. Some of them even have hills. The park on Texel is lovely as is the seaside. Get a bike, a pack lunch, some spliffs and some some jenever and make a day out of it. Or two.

Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog are Frisian, Texel is part of Noord-Holland.

Dutch Railways is http://www.ns.nl/servlet/Satellite?cid=1075985690180&pagename=www.ns.nl%2FPage%2FSuperHomepageEnglish&lang=en&c=Page if you consider Haarlem, Delft and Brugge as daytrips, it would be: Schiphol - Amsterdam - Antwerp - Gent - Antwerp – Schiphol
You could do Haarlem as a daytrip easily and I would suggest doing Delft on your way to Brugge (i.e. leave amsterdam in the morning, visit Delft and go on to Brugge at night).

Delft, Den Hague and Kinderdyk are all perfectly situated day trips from Amsterdam. You might like Rotterdam as well. The city has great architecture and you can ride along the River Maas in a water taxi. There is a good shopping district in Rotterdam. The Block Houses in Rotterdam are worth a peek. Check out Bazaar, a very good restaurant...Indonesian, I think. Zenne, a nice Turkish restaurant is located along the river across from Hotel New York. Hotel New York is a historic hotel in Rotterdam and worth the splurge.